Like most of the young bravos who hung out around the Basilio docks, he made his living as he had in New Crobuzon—running errands, delivering messages and goods, keeping his eyes and ears open, for whatever handful of change his momentary employer chose to give him. His Salt was game and comprehensible, if not fluent. A little more than half of his evenings he spent with Angevine. She berthed in Tintinnabulum’s Castor, below its belfry. She often returned very late at night, since Tintinnabulum spent long hours in the meetings with his colleagues, and with Krüach Aum and Bellis and the Lovers, and Angevine fetched books or materials for him, from the library or from his hidden laboratory at the back of his ship. She would return tired, and Shekel would soothe her with supper and inexpert massages. Angevine did not speak much about the avanc project, but Shekel could easily sense her tension and excitement. Other evenings he spent at what he still thought of as his own home, which he shared with Tanner Sack.
